Thursday, 3 July 2014

Shadows Edge - Brent Weeks

After The Way of Shadows, I had high hopes
for this novel, and I wasn’t disappointed. Weeks builds on the first installment, weaving events and characters deftly together in a way that,
for the most part, is subtle enough to go unnoticed, but all culminates at the
end. There were a few points at which a character does something without
thinking and I thought “This seems important”, but I had no idea why it would be
important, so if anything that increased the sense of anticipation.

We begin
with Kylar, the main character, attempting to renounce his career as an
assassin and settle down with his childhood sweetheart Elene and their adopted daughter,
Uly. However, events pull him inexorably back to his invaded hometown, and he
is forced to accept the fact that he is meant for greater things than living
quietly as an apothecary in a foreign country.

This novel
introduces some new point of view characters, and also gives us some surprising
changes of loyalty for characters from the first novel. One of the most outstanding
things about The Night Angel Trilogy
for me is the moral complexity it creates – both good and bad characters do
things that could be construed as either good or evil, and Weeks rejects the
idea that anyone can be all unadulterated good or evil. A particularly poignant
example is the close friendships the rightful king Logan makes in the dungeon
with some of the murderers, cannibals and prostitutes, who are still human
beings despite their pasts and their horrific surroundings.

There are
many point of view characters, and I did occasionally find it hard to remember
exactly who they all were and who was allied with whom, but everything
inexorably led to the climax of the novel, where it all came together with a
momentum that just makes you keep reading.

One minor
gripe I have with the trilogy is the artwork on the covers. I know it’s a minor
thing, but it is easy to look at the cover of a book and decide then and there
whether you want to buy and read it. I get the impression that they were aiming
for a similar effect to the style of Brandon Sanderson’s novels – a plain white
background, with a figure and abstract colour swirls. What makes Sanderson’s
covers beautiful, however, is the artwork, whereas for Weeks’ trilogy we have a
slightly blurred photoshoot with some guy in a black costume. Because it’s a
photograph rather than artwork it just looks strange with the overlayed swirl
of colour. The complete trilogy has a black cover with a simple sword across
it, which to my taste is much more effective.

Anyway, the
cover makes no difference to the contents – I just feel that with such a great
story inside, this trilogy deserves better presentation outside. It’s
definitely well worth reading, and I’m looking forward to seeing where the
third book leads.